


A Cautious Truce

by Lirillith



Category: Long Live the Queen (Video Game)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Developing Relationship, F/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22766173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: Elodie and Thaddeus on their wedding night.
Relationships: Elodie/Thaddeus (Long Live the Queen)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	A Cautious Truce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mireia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireia/gifts).



> Content warnings: Allusions to Thaddeus's issues, manifesting at one point as a homophobic comment.

"Wait, you what?"

"I said I've never done any of this before!" Thaddeus's face is red in the lamplight. He looks like he might cry. Elodie had never imagined him looking like this. The only expressions she's ever seen on his face are laughter and fury. But here they are. They'd just been kissing, and sure, he'd seemed a little nervous, but so was she. Everything else had seemed fine. And then the moment she tried to use a little tongue, he pushed her away and started freaking out.

"Really? Not even kissing?"

"None of it! Not like you! You've probably done _everything._ "

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, you're popular, and you had boyfriends!"

"I had _one!_ " And even if she'd actually slept with him (which seemed borderline impossible to Elodie, since the dorm mother watched them like a hawk, and Samivel still lived with his parents in town) why did that mean Thaddeus had to freak out?

"That's more than I've had!"

"Well, I wouldn't have expected you to have any boyfriends," Elodie says, trying to make a joke of it, and to her horror, his face crumples.

"Wait, is that the problem? You actually like guys more, and your mother forced you into marrying me?" That would explain freaking out about kissing a girl. She feels terrible about the joke. Why shouldn't he have boyfriends?

"No!" he yells. So much for that idea. 

"It would be fine if that's how you felt. I mean, we have to stay married, at least for a while, but—"

"No! After seeing what I saw, the idea of doing anything like that with a guy makes me want to puke."

Somehow after that outburst the room feels even more silent than before. The ticking of the clock is thunderous, and so is the tiny sob that escapes from Thaddeus. Elodie remembers something Arisse had said, about him seeing something he shouldn't have.

"Thaddeus," she says, as softly and gently as she can. "I'm sorry. I don't understand exactly what's going on here. Your mother told me you'd seen something you shouldn't have seen, and she told me not to ask you about it. So I'm not going to. But if you want to tell me, you can."

He can't possibly tell her. Even when he manages to quiet his breathing, and pull himself together a bit, and drink the chamomile tea Elodie had the maid bring, he still feels kind of sick just thinking about it. He can't make himself not think about it right now. There's no one to go fight, nothing he can break in this room — if he did break something, he knows the servants would talk — and no way to distract himself, not when the light is out, and there's a bed, and a girl he's supposed to sleep with. 

He does have to literally sleep with her, and even though she's being gentle and careful — _thanks_ , Mum, he thinks, thanks for that, just the way he'd always wanted to start his marriage — he still feels weird about lying down in the bed with her. It's not like he thinks she's going to attack him. It's just strange, all of it, having her in the room with him, in the same bed, even if that bed is about the size of his dorm room at school.

At school, he'd always thought she seemed... happy. She had two parents who were alive and still married and who loved each other, and she could trust them. At least, she acted like somebody who could trust both her parents. She acted like somebody who didn't worry about asking questions, or avoid mentioning certain relatives, or thinking too hard about how anyone had died. She wasn't especially smart, or athletic, but she didn't need to be, did she? It wasn't like she had a bunch of siblings who might get all the land and titles and leave nothing for her. She was pretty, and she was the heir to the throne, and she basically had it made. 

From the things his mum has said — and from the fact the family was about to go to war with her — he knows that she doesn't have it quite as easy as he always thought. And he gets the impression she's smarter than he used to think, too. Maybe she has to try harder now that it's real life and not just school. She's still pretty, though, which was the reason they were even kissing in the first place. He'd thought it would be okay. After all, they were married now, and he did, hypothetically, eventually, want to have sex with a girl. With his wife. It made him nervous, yeah, but that was probably normal, and it was partly excitement, and he was okay, until suddenly he wasn't.

"Hey," he whispers, and a moment later, from across the expanse of bed, Elodie murmurs something in response.

"Elodie," he repeats, in case she's just talking in her sleep. "You awake?"

"I am now," she grumbles, but he doesn't think she sounds that mad.

"Just checking," he says.

A moment later, he feels the mattress shift, and hears covers thrash around, until finally she's crawling across the bed towards him.

"What?" he asks, a little uneasy.

"Since you're up," she says, and he sits up. 

"Yeah?"

"We should go on a date tomorrow."

"A date?"

"Just... a walk in the gardens or something?" When he doesn't say anything right away, she adds, "Or we could go for a ride, or something. I'm not very good on a horse, but I suppose I could still learn. I don't know. You don't want to?"

"No no no! That sounds kind of nice." A walk. Talking. Getting to know each other, gradually, like he's been told normal couples do.

"Really?" 

"Yeah. Let's do it." He's smiling. Mum always said people can hear a smile in your voice, which might be why she never smiles.

"Good," Elodie says, and he can hear her smiling, for sure, before he hears the creak and shuffle as she travels back to her side of the bed.

A date, he thinks. Maybe they'll hold hands.


End file.
